Biohaven

Biohaven works on 12 rare diseases tracked on Trial Friend, including Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Inherited Erythromelalgia, Focal Epilepsy and 9 more, with 9 recruiting clinical trials.

Biohaven traces its origin to one of the more unusual deals in recent biotech history. Founder and CEO Dr. Vlad Coric, a Yale psychiatrist who spent years working on neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative drugs, took an early Yale-licensed migraine compound called Nurtec ODT and built it into one of the fastest-growing branded migraine pills in the United States. In 2022, Pfizer paid $11.6 billion to acquire the original Biohaven and keep Nurtec for its migraine franchise. Vlad and his team kept everything else, spinning the remaining pipeline out as a new public company in October 2022. The new Biohaven now trades on the NYSE under the ticker BHVN and is based in New Haven, Connecticut.

The largest part of today's pipeline is a new class of drugs in immunology, designed to clear disease-driving proteins from the body. The platforms are called MoDE and TRAP, both licensed from Yale University in 2021, and the simplest way to describe what they do is that they grab onto specific antibodies or proteins floating in the blood, the kind that drive autoimmune disease, and pull them into the body's natural cleanup pathway to be destroyed. The two most advanced degrader programs moved into late-stage testing in 2026: BHV-1300 began a Phase 3 pivotal trial in Graves' disease, dosing its first patient in June 2026 after early studies showed it could lower the disease-driving thyroid antibody by more than 80%, and BHV-1400 is expected to begin its pivotal trial in IgA nephropathy in the second half of 2026. Earlier-stage degrader candidates target IgG4-mediated disease (BHV-1450), peripartum cardiomyopathy (BHV-1600), membranous nephropathy (BHV-1420), and other pathogenic proteins, with nearly 200 people dosed across the degrader platform to date. The platform's provenance also received a legal stamp in 2026: a federal jury found that Avilar Therapeutics and RA Capital had willfully misappropriated the Yale trade secret behind the MODA degradation technology, and on August 25, 2026 the court entered judgment awarding Biohaven and Yale a combined $4 million.

Beyond immunology, Biohaven is also running late-stage trials in two brain-related areas. Opakalim (BHV-7000) is in Phase 2/3 development for focal epilepsy and works by stabilizing electrical activity in the brain that drives seizures; its two pivotal studies, RISE 2 and RISE 3, completed (RISE 3) or continued (RISE 2) enrollment through mid-2026, with topline results from RISE 3 expected in the second half of 2026. On August 26, 2026, Biohaven granted SK Biopharmaceuticals an exclusive worldwide license to its Kv7 ion channel platform, including opakalim. Biohaven will receive $400 million in near-term cash plus development and regulatory milestones and royalties, and SK Biopharmaceuticals will take over Kv7 program costs and commercialization; the agreement is subject to antitrust clearance before it closes. Separately, BHV-8000 is in Phase 2/3 development for early Parkinson's disease and aims to dampen brain inflammation thought to contribute to disease progression. In oncology, two cancer drugs called antibody-drug conjugates (BHV-1510 and BHV-1530) are in Phase 1 trials for solid tumors, both now being tested in combination with Regeneron's Libtayo under clinical supply agreements, with updated BHV-1530 data expected at the ESMO cancer congress in October 2026.

The company has had recent setbacks worth noting. Troriluzole, a glutamate modulator that Biohaven had been developing for spinocerebellar ataxia, received an FDA Complete Response Letter in November 2025. Biohaven has since held a Type A meeting with the FDA to begin an appeal, and it withdrew its European application in March 2025. Taldefgrobep alfa, a myostatin inhibitor, missed its Phase 3 endpoint in spinal muscular atrophy and is now being studied in obesity, where it is designed to promote weight loss while preserving lean muscle; the Phase 2 obesity study finished enrolling in early 2026 and topline data is expected in the second half of 2026.